There are about 5,000 languages in the world.1
Some are used by about one billion people (e.g., Chinese), some are
spoken by only a few thousand people (e.g., many languages in Africa,
Australia, New Guinea, Siberia, in the Amazon jungles of South America).2 No matter what kind of language it is, each language will have some basic features, like the following:

A. All languages have a sound system which
consists, basically, of a certain balance of consonants and vowels, or
of consonantal and vocalic sounds (phonemes).3
There are no
languages which would have only consonants and no vowels, or vice
versa. After all, languages consist of basically a string or series of
sounds that "stream out" or "sound off" from a speaker's mouth.4

B. All languages are linear, i.e., one sound
follows another; there are no languages where sounds, several sounds,
are co-produced as one sound.5 In other words, language/speech is horizontal, not vertical, in terms of time-perimeter.

C. In addition to sounds, all languages have other
meaningful units: words, phrases, sentences. In other words, in all the
languages6 of the world the existing sounds are combined into certain longer/larger units.

in many languages, all kinds of sounds that are neither pure vowels nor pure consonants. E.g., in English, such sounds as b d g p t k are always considered as consonants , a e i o u are always vowels, but r f l y w v are
different. They have some of the characteristic features of both kinds.
However, we will not go into the detailed discussion here.

D. Nothing is "wild" or "disorderly" in any of the
world's languages. Their sound systems (i.e., their phonological
structures), their form systems (i.e., their morphological structures),
their syntax and lexicon are strictly governed by definite rules or
laws.7

E. Last but not least, most of the words in all
the languages are completely arbitrary, i.e., they have nothing
inherent, nothing specific of the object they signify. For example,
when we say four in English or keturi in
Lithuanian, neither word has anything specific that would necessarily
refer to the (cardinal numeral) '4.' Or there is nothing that by itself
suggests or indicates a kind of building when one says house in English or namas in Lithuanian.8

These five universal features found in every and
all languages in the world will suffice here. Various schools of
linguistics advocate listing other universals while other schools
dispute some of them; some schools of linguistics refuse to recognize
any linguistic universals. In this connection one should perhaps
mention one more common feature for all languages. Namely, all
languages have changed in the course of time; however, since some
people argue that everything in human society changes, then this would
perhaps not be language-specific.9

In addition to these general linguistic
universals, individual language families have developed some specific
features of their own, which can be observed — to a larger or
lesser degree — in all of their daughter languages. If one now
turns specifically to the Indo-European language family, the very
largest in the world10
and the best-investigated one, one could find several unique features.
Many linguists consider the synthetic character, or nature, of the
Indo-European language family as its most characteristic feature. In
simplest terms it means that here the original, primordial roots,
words, suffixes, prefixes, endings are synthetized, fused into one form
without any possibility of "taking them apart again." E.g., if one
reconstructs the Lithuanian word vilkas 'wolf' all the way back to Early Proto-Indo-European, one may arrive at one root such as *welk-which
may have meant something like our modern "dragging/to drag/the doing of
the dragging," etc. Later a suffix was added, something like -o/e-
which earlier may have been some kind of a pronoun, signifying perhaps
something like 'he/that one/this one.' Even later in the development of
Proto-Indo-European, another "word" was added, the one which we later
started to call 'the ending,' something of this nature: -es/-os/-s.
Thus, we may have had the following sequence of the development:

I. *welk- > II. *welk- + o/e- > III. *welk- + o/e + es.

Each of these "elements," or, originally, roots or words, had had a separate meaning. But when a Lithuanian now says vilkas, he
just uses the entire words as basic unit to signify that kind of a wild
animal, without thinking that the present ending -as also signifies:
'masculine' + 'singular' + 'nominative' + 'subject/ etc. That is the
basis of this kind of synthesis.11 Later many modern
Indo-European languages lost some of these additions, or replaced them
with other structures. On the other hand, they may have added other
elements, such as articles (the, or a/an in English; der, die, das in German, etc., etc.).

In a recent article12 we
reiterated that Lithuanian is the most archaic, the most conservative
of all living Indo-European languages. Nevertheless, it has changed a
great deal too. In the following discussion we will briefly glance at
features of Lithuanian, both old and new, which can be found only in
Lithuanian; i.e., these are the unique features of Lithuanian.

I. Only Lithuanian, alone of all Indo-European languages, has developed a specific frequentative past tense.13
In other words, if you want to indicate a habitual, repeated action in
the past, you take the so-called infinite stem and add a suffix -da(v)- plus the regular simple past tense endings. E.g., eiti 'to go:' ei + dav + au "I used to go;' valgyti 'to eat:' valgy + dav + au (=valgydavau) 'I used to eat,' etc. Here are some samples of this frequentative past tense in full:

eiti 'to go'

valgyti 'to eat'

aš eidavau

aš valgydavau

'I used to go,' etc.

'I used to eat,' etc.

tu eidavai

tu valgydavai

jis eidavo

jis valgydavo

mes eidavome

mes valgydavome

jūs eidavote

jūs valgydavote

ie eidavo

jie valgydavo

The origin of this interesting development of
Lithuanian has not been satisfactorily explained. There are various
theories and hypotheses concerning its origin, but nobody knows for
sure.14

II. Only Lithuanian has such a complicated participial system still in active use.15 All told, there are thirteen participles in Lithuanian.16
Since English has only two participles left, a reader who only knows
this very simplified English system may have some difficulty even
imagining the Lithuanian 13-participle system. We will illustrate this
with some examples. Let us take such a simple Lithuanian verb as
valgyti 'to eat' and derive all the 13 participles from it,
illustrating them with sample sentences.

1. The present active participle. Derived from the 3rd person17 present tense: infin. valgyti 'to eat:' 3rd person pres. t. valgo; root of the latter: valg- plus -as/antis (masc.) = valgas/valgantis; fem.: valg + anti = valganti.18 Now, valgąs/valganti means, basically, "the eating one; the one who is (now) eating; the one who is (now) engaged in the action of eating." E.g., Visiems valgantiems reikia duoti
kavos. 'All the ones who are eating should be given (served) coffee19(Literally:
'To all eating necessary to give coffee'). In this sample sentence, the
present active participle valgantiems is in dative plural masculine
gender, and it is used as a noun, syntactically as an indirect
object.

2. The past active participle. Derived from the 3rd person, simple past tense: valgė '(he/she/they) ate:' valg + es (masc.), valg + iusi (fern.) = valgęs/valgiusi 'the
one who has eaten.' English, of course, does not have the exact
equivalent since there is no such participle in English. E.g., jissakė, kad jis vakar valgęs šioje valgykloje. 'He said he ate (had eaten) in this restaurant yesterday.'20

3. The frequentative past active participle. Since,
as we have elaborated above, only Lithuanian has developed a special
frequentative past tense, then this particular participle is doubly
unique: no other Indo-European language, dead or alive, had such a
participle. This participle, just like the one above, is derived from
the 3rd person of the frequentative past tense by adding exactly the
same endings: -ęs, -(i)usi'.21 Thus valgydavo: valgydav + ęs = valgydavęs 'the one who used to eat' (masc.), valgydavusi 'the one who used to eat' (fem.). As it was explained in Footnote #20, this participle is primarily used in indirect speech: Jis sakė, jis dažnai valgydavęs šioje valgykloje 'He said he used to often eat in this restaurant.'

7. The future passive participle: valgysimas, -a '(something) that will be eaten; (something) to be eaten.'23

(8-13) There are also four undeclinable adverbial
participles: present, past, frequentative past, and future. In addition
to that, there is a special adverbial active participle, and a
participle of necessity. To summarize:

III. Only Lithuanian has developed four functional
locative cases, or four separate locative forms. In most of the other
Indo-European languages, the locative case was given up rather early,
replaced with some kind of a prepositional construction. In Lithuanian,
on the other hand, this development went contrary to the general trend
which by analogy was supposed to lead to more uniformity, to more
simplification, to limiting of morphological parameters and to
expanding of syntactical level. Thus, in addition to the inherited
(Proto-j Indo-European locative case25 in -e (plural -se, earlier -su), Lithuanian has three additional locative forms. Let us take the word laukas 'field; outdoors,' and mark all four possible locatives:

1. The regular locative (=inessive): lauke 'in the field, on the field; outside'

2. the illative: laukan 'into the field; (to the) outside; out'

3. the adesive: laukop 'up to the field'

4. the directive: laukiep 'up and into the field'

One has to note here that in Standard (Literary) Lithuanian only the regular locative is used. The illative is
used selectively and usually as an adverb of place, but in some dialects of Lithuanian, all four locatives are still in use.

IV. Only Lithuanian has completely levelled its
adjectival and adverbial gradation. In other words, there are no
irregular, or suppletive forms in the comparative and superlative forms
in the Lithuanian adjective and adverbial systems. Just compare:

Positive

Comparative

Superlative

English

good

better

best

Lithuanian

geras

geresnis

geriausias

In other words, all the adjectives (and adverbs)
are inflected (for the degrees of comparison) 100 percent uniformly:
for the comparative, add the suffix -esnis (masc.) and for the superlative, add the suffix -iausias (masc.). This is, from the historical/diachronic point of view, just the opposite of point #3, above.26

V. Lithuanian has developed four different present tense conjugational patterns of the verb būti 'to be:'

(aš)

esmi

esu

būnu

būvu

'I am'

(tu)

esi

esi

būni

būvi

'thou art'

(jis)

esti

yra

būna

būva

'he is'

(mes)

esame

esame

būname

būvame

'we are'

(jūs)

esate

esate

būnate

būvate

'you are (pl)'

(jie)

esti

yra

būna

būva

'they are'

The first two patterns are really based on the ancient Indo-European root *es- 'to be,' and the last two are based on another Indo-European root *bheu-/*bhou-/*bhu-which
also meant 'to be.' In the course of many centuries, even millennia,
certain subtle semantic shifts have developed between these forms, and
the normative, or school
grammars of Lithuanian usually present only the second pattern, but all
four are still used in various dialects and regions of Lithuanian.
Although the form esm; 'I am' is at least 5,000 years old, it is
exactly the same as in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European. But the
most mysterious form in the whole system is yra 'is/are.' Nobody can
explain its origin, and some linguists surmise that yra is not even a
verbal form as we understand it today, but a very ancient petrified
noun, or, rather, an apellative word from those primordial times when
no distinction was "felt" between what we today understand as a "noun"
and a "verb."27

VI. Lithuanian has three different forms of the infinitive: in -ti, -te, and -tų. For examples: eiti, eite, eitų 'to go.' Historically (or diachronically) the first form (eiti) is
an old dative case since most of the infinitives in various
Indo-European languages were really abstract nouns. The second form (eite) was, possibly, an old vocative, although its origin is not as clear as that of the first one in -ti. The third form (eitų) is really an old supinum, and its origin is connected with the desiderative, or subjunctive mood.28
Again, I hasten to add, that in school/prescriptive/normative grammars
of Lithuanian, only the first form in -ti is given. All these three
types of the infinitive have developed very special usages, but this is
not the place to talk about that.

VII. In Standard Lithuanian, which distinguishes on the stressed syllable three types of intonation,29
the unstressed syllables, both preceding and following the stressed
syllable, will always carry the so-called falling or circumflex
intonation, if the syllable is long, and the so-called short intonation
if the syllable is short. For examples (the stressed syllable is in
italics):

láimė : pàláimiñtì : laĩmìngaĩ :
laĩmiñgàsìs

kàimas : kaĩmẽnė :
kaĩmỳnàs : kaĩmỹnỳstẽ :
kaĩmýnìškàs

mókỹtì : mókỹtõjõ : mõkỹtõjáutì : mõkỹtõjãvìmàs

This is one of the things that is rather difficult
to learn and imitate, if one is not a native speaker. It gives spoken
Lithuanian a certain semi-melodious "lilt" that is almost impossible to
describe.30 In some Lithuanian dialects this "proportional distribution of dichotomous intonation" is quite different.

VIII. Of the spoken (or living) Indo-European
languages, only Lithuanian can lay a claim to have preserved several
words or forms exactly as they are reconstructed for the distant
proto-language, i.e., Proto-Indo-European. The most suitable example
for this unusual tenacity is the Lithuanian noun sūnus 'son.' For
Proto-Indo-European this word is usually reconstructed as *sunus. Now,
if the first -u- in the reconstructed form was long, and if the main
stress fell on the second syllable, then we would have a 100 percent
correspondence. Unfortunately, we cannot establish those facts firmly.
However, sound for sound, or phoneme for phoneme, the Lithuanian sūnus
is a remarkable relic, a really precious antique par excellenne. The
same could be said for Lithuanian esmi "I am" and a few other words.
Some Lithuanian words preserved almost like the reconstructed
proto-language31 are the following: penki, penketas, penkeri 'five;' esti 'is;' dūmai 'smoke;' trys, treji, trejetas 'three' and many others.

IX. Only in Lithuanian all the basic possessive adjectives and possessive pronouns have fallen together: they are both
expressed by the same form, namely genitive (like in Latin eius):

This is one feature of Lithuanian which is more
uniform, more generalized, more "analytical" than in any other
Indo-European language, living or dead. One could almost say that this
is like with point #4 (=adjective/adverb gradation): it has been
carried to extremes of analogy, in the direction of total uniformity.33

One could find several more unique features of Lithuanian, like the rather well-preserved dual,34
the fully developed system of the definite adjectives, the fact that,
basically, Lithuanian has preserved the only Proto-Euro-pean sibilant (s) in all positions (cf. Proto-Indo-European *sousos 'dry' and Lithuanian sausas 'id.'); the fact that the

Lithuanian hydronyms are the most archaic, the
most "Indo-European" of all the other languages; the fact that only
Lithuanian has preserved the stress/intonation differences in all positions,
etc. But some of these features, at least partially, may be found in
some other Indo-European languages, or dialects. In that sense they
could not be considered as 100 percent unique features of Lithuanian.
Therefore, we chose to stop after listing nine unique features.

1 This count is not definite. The main reason for
this is the fact that linguists and anthropologists who are most
interested in this problem, disagree on how to
count languages. The origin, the relationship of some languages are
obscure. Some languages are considered to be only dialects of larger
groupments or "fully-pledged" languages. E.g., some linguists consider
Sardinian as a separate language, others would consider Sardinian
(only) as a dialect of Italian. There are many such unsolved cases.2 Cf. C. F. and F. M. Voegelin, Classification and Index of the World's Languages, Elsevier, New York, 1977. (658 pages).
3 "Consonants" and "vowels" is the basic, or roughest division. There are,
4 At this point, the reader should be aware that we are talking here,
primarily, of spoken, oral language, i.e., speech. The writing system
is just an artificial way to use arbitrary signs to record some parts
of the language. More than half of the languages spoken on this earth
do not yet have their own writing or writing system.
5 By this we do not try to deny the claim of some experimental
phoneticians who claim that each sound of a language/speech is a
complicated cluster of certain sound features, generally known as
distinctive features (DF).
6 This means all natural, normal human languages. It does not include
artificial languages, particularly computer languages. This also does
not include the so-called
glossalalia, or "speaking in tongues." A different question,
theoretically, is whether to count such languages as Esperanto, Volapuk
as "normal" languages. For further details, please cf. Antanas
Klimas, "English and Lithuanian: Two Candidates for the International
Language," The English Record, vol. XVII (April 1969), pp. 61-70. This article was also reprinted in Lituanus, vol.
15 (1969), No. 3, pp. 25-34. Although many artificial languages have
been created as international languages, none of them ever reached any
practical importance, except for one: Esperanto. Esperanto is still
expanding slowly, especially in Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, my
personal opinion is that one of the natural languages (English, French,
Spanish, Chinese . . .?) will become a true international language of
cross-cultural communication. However, that language will never replace
those 5,000 or so of the world's languages.7 I would like to observe here that a normal native speaker of
the language is usually not aware of these rules, or these laws. He/she
just "says it so." Or "That's the way we would say it" is usually a
normal answer if someone is asked about some intricacy of a particular
language. These "rules" or "laws" or "underlying regulations" are in
the so-called deep structure, or, in simpler terms, they are in the unconscious or subconscious mind of the speaker.
8 It is also true that alllanguages have words, expressions,
phrases, sentences even which are really imitations of natural sounds.
Cf. such English words as "to slurp," "to rustle,' "to moo," etc. Many
years ago, some linguists had proposed a hypothesis that this kind of
imitation gave the impetus for the origin of human speech. However, it
cannot be proven. Generally speaking, we do not know how human
speech/language originated. We can only surmise that it must have
happened a very long time ago.
9 Cf. Antanas Klimas, "Some Unsolved Riddles of Lithuanian Linguistics," Lituanus, vol. 30 (1984), No. 1, pp. 70-81.
10 The Indo-European language family has about 2 billion speakers. Most
of the North India languages are Indo-European; so are Pashtu in
Afghanistan; further: Persian, Kurdish; Greek, Albanian, Armenian; all
Slavic languages (Russian, Ukrainian,
Byelorussian; Polish, Czech, Slovak; Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian,
Macedonian . . .); all Romance (Italic) languages: Italian, Romanian,
French, Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Provencal,
Rheto-Romance, etc.); all Germanic languages (Icelandic, Swedish,
Norwegian; German, English, Dutch, Yiddish, Flemish, Afrikaans,
Pennsylvania Dutch, etc.), all Baltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian,
etc.); all Celtic languages (Irish, Welsh, Breton, etc.); and, of
course all their colonial branches, as it were, in the Americas, in
Australia, etc.
11 In other words, the native speaker does not really distinguish the
stem, the ending, etc. For him, it has all been "synthetized" into one
entity.
12 Cf. Footnote #9.
13 More on its possible origin, cf. my article cited in Footnote #9.
14 Cf. Footnote #9.
15 Generally speaking, from the lexical, semantic, morphological, and
syntactic point of view, the participle is the most
variagated, the most interesting part of speech. However, in most
grammars, following the old classical Creek/Latin model, the participle
is never given such an "exalted" status as a separate part of speech:
it is usually considered a part of the verbal system. However,
although, on the main, derived from some principal part of the verb,
the participle can occur, or "act" as a verb, as an adjective, as a
noun, as a pronoun and even as an adverb.
16 For the most schematic and full presentation of the Lithuanian
participial system in English, cf. Leonardas Dambriūnas, Antanas Klimas
and William R.
Schmalstieg, Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, Brooklyn, (3rd edition) 1980, especially pp. 204-213; 268-272; 277-280; 348-355.
17 As it is well known, Lithuanian as well as all the other Baltic
languages never distinguished the singular and the plural forms of the
3rd person. This is most probably very ancient, very archaic, going
back to the pre-inflectional stage of Proto-Indo-European.
18 Both of these forms are used. For more details, cf. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit.
19 For the declension of the participles, cf. Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit., spec. pp. 348-355.
20 I would like to point out here that the participle valgęs is
used here in indirect speech. This is, again, one of the very archaic,
very unique features of the Baltic languages: only in the Baltic
languages are various participles used in indirect speech. This, in
itself, is a very complicated problem, but this is not the place to
elaborate on it.
21 Whether -us/ or -iusi is used in the feminine forms, depends on the phonetic nature of the root from which such forms are derived. For details, cf. Introduction, op. cit.22 In order to save space, we will not elaborate on the derivation. For details, please consult the Introduction, op. cit.
23 There is no frequentative past passive participle. It has never been
developed. This fact, among other things, also shows that the
frequentative past tense developed rather late, perhaps between 700 AD
and 1400 AD.
24 Like in many other related Indo-European languages, there are verbs
which have never developed all these 13 "possible" participles. This
concerns, particularly such verbs as the modal auxiliaries, etc.
25 Many linguists believe that the locative may have been the oldest,
the most archaic case of the developing Proto-Indo-European case system.
26 This is an analogy carried to extremes. In other words, this is a
complete regularization. Even Latvian, so closely related to
Lithuanian, has some suppletive forms left.
27 Cf. Jonas Kazlauskas, Istorinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius, 1968.
28 The subjunctive mood in Standard Lithuanian is still in the process
of establishment as a norm since, in various Lithuanian dialects, its
forms differ considerably.
29 For more details cf. Introduction, op. cit.
30 By this, I do not mean that a non-native cannot learn it. It depends on many
circumstances. I do know several non-native speakers of Lithuanian who have
mastered this problem very well.
31 Since Proto-Indo-European, before it split into separate branches,
is dated before or about 3,000 BC, then such Lithuanian words as sūnus,
esmi could be considered to be about 5,000 old.
32 Cf. any good etymological dictionaries of any Indo-European
languages, such as Buck (Indo-European), Fraenkel (Lithuanian), Onions
(English), Skeat (English), Kluge (German), etc.
33 Some linguists consider this dichotomy a general characteristic of
Lithuanian. On the one hand, Lithuanian has preserved the most complex
nominal inflection, on the other — the Lithuanian verbal system
is rather simple. However, even in this rather simple verbal system one
finds the very complicated 13-participle participial system. And there
are several such dichotomous features.
34 I would like to add that the dual is no longer considered 'part and
parcel' of the Standard Literary Lithuanian. However, it is very much
alive in several large dialect groups. Cf. also the Introduction to Modern Lithuanian, op. cit. see Index.